The forbidden 14er

Many climbers wouldn’t put Culebra in the top 10, or even the top 25, of their favorite 14ers.

If it wasn’t a 14er, it probably wouldn’t even be talked about much.

Most of the hike is on a muddy, four-wheel-drive road. It’s long and steep, but there’s nothing to make the heart race. There are no cliffs, no scrambling, no climbing. It’s mostly just a long slog over tundra and talus. Most climbers consider it kind of boring.

And yet, it’s probably the most coveted of the state’s 54 14ers. And the reason for that has nothing to do with its location, its beauty or its cliffs.

It’s the fact that climbers can’t drive up and climb it anytime they want to. In fact, few get to climb it these days. Mount Culebra, 14,047 feet, is located on the Culebra Ranch near San Luis. And that ranch has closed the mountain to the public.

Gareth and Linda Roberts of Greeley are two of the lucky few. Gareth, 50, and Linda, 47, were stuck at 53 14ers for more than a year but finally won a special lottery sponsored by the Colorado Mountain Club to climb the rare summit on Aug. 23. On a cloudy, crummy day, they made it.

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There are dozens like the Roberts who need Culebra to complete their goal of climbing all the 14ers in Colorado. It’s a popular goal. In fact, these days, the climbers you meet on a 14er, and it’s impossible not to run into at least a few, know how many they’ve climbed. More often than not, in fact, they keep a list of what they’ve climbed and are after all of them.

So the fact that the mountain is closed frustrates many climbers.

Some, in fact, wish it was no longer included as an official 14er.

Others simply have a wait on their hands. And that wait may grow as more apply to the mountain club’s annual lottery to complete their goals.

This year, in fact, the demand for the climbs was so high that the mountain club had to limit it to those who had climbed all of Colorado’s 14ers but Culebra. In the past, climbers only needed 25 14ers to enter the lottery.

It’s probably going to be that way every year from now on, said Kristy Judd, executive director of the Colorado Mountain Club.

“More and more people are realizing that we’re their only chance,” Judd said.

In fact, there were people from Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and Utah among the 75 who got a chance to climb. Climbers must also be a Colorado Mountain Club member and pay a $25 fee to the Culebra Ranch to maintain its road that leads to the mountain.

Gareth has climbed for years, but Linda’s story is more typical of a growing number of Colorado residents. Linda climbed Longs Peak in 1987, the year the couple moved back to Colorado after living in various states.

She soon got hooked and started to pursue all of them, and Gareth reclimbed many of his with her.

Their twin 16-year-old sons, Graham and Evan, joined them as they got older. They’ve each climbed more than 30 now.

“They did some of the mountains riding in the baby backpack,” Linda said, “but we made them hike them again when they got older. They were hacked off at that.”

But as more residents such as Linda began to realize that all the 14ers were an attainable goal, and not something only for the ones skipping up Everest, they soared in popularity. Their popularity reached a peak (no pun intended) just as Culebra closed four years ago.

Now many of those same residents find themselves with a list full of checkmarks.

And an empty spot for Culebra.

Lou Pai bought the former Taylor Ranch in 1999 and changed its name. Before then, the ranch was open to climbers as long as they called and made a reservation and paid a $25 fee. That also changed.

Pai, a former Enron executive, closed the ranch and told the Colorado Mountain Club to handle all requests for climbers. Now the club negotiates every year for access. Every year, the ranch has allowed a bit more.

Two years ago, the club got a third climb, and this year, the owners also let one climb include Red Mountain, another coveted summit because it is a “centennial,” in the top 100 of the state’s peaks. Many climb the rest of the centennials after they’ve bagged all 54 of the 14ers.

The mountain club has no way to check if all the climbers it takes every year have indeed scaled all 53 others. Climbing is, by nature, an honor sport because, other than a summit shot, which have been famously doctored throughout mountaineering history, there’s no way to know if someone is telling the truth when they say they’ve climbed a mountain. There are registers on many of the 14ers, but they can be difficult to find or are full.

There’s also a rumor that the Colorado Mountain Club won’t count Culebra if climbers can’t prove they climbed it without trespassing. But Judd said, again, the club relies on the honor system.

“Send us a letter saying you’ve climbed them all, and we’ll put your name on the list,” Judd said.

It’s why the club hopes climbers are honorable and will wait their turn.

Though some climbers say they know hikers who have poached the mountain, Judd said that’s only going to lead to it being closed permanently.

“In order for us to get access, we have to be responsible climbers,” Judd said. “Hopefully that’s a message the climbing community is hearing. The owners want climbers to have access, but they want it to be controlled. There’s nothing wrong with that.”

It’s hard to know what would happen if climbers were caught in the patrolled area trying to nab the summit. The Costilla County Sheriff’s Office won’t comment on Culebra because of the Enron civil case. Some employees and investors are suing to freeze the assets of Enron executives, and it mentions the property.

Another lucky climber, Jim Mallory, who has his own climbing Web site and is a frequent contributor to the popular climbing Internet magazine http://www.fourteenerworld.com, has the attitude of many climbers. He believes the owners should be able to do what they want, although he’s also frustrated that it Culebra is not open.

“I just hope something can be worked out where access is opened up,” Mallory said.

The Roberts understand as well. Even though the $25 fee may seem like a lot, the ranch road was messed up badly just from the hikers.

The Roberts said they’re not sure they would want hundreds of hikers a year tromping all over their private land either. And they said having the land private does protect it from the Bush administration’s almost overzealous drive to open up beautiful public areas to logging and mining.

But they, too, are frustrated. Their next goal is to get their kids up all the 14ers.

And the problem now is practically a rule that Culebra will be the last 14er for those who climb it.

Usually that’s a time to celebrate. It’s a time to maybe bring a family member along and have a toast with them. That’s now impossible.

Perhaps it’s not the fact that someone is limiting when you can get your last 14er in that frustrates climbers like the Roberts. It’s the fact that it’s hard to enjoy it once you’re there.

“You know, we always thought we’d get to celebrate our last 14er with our sons,” Gareth said wistfully. “It would have been really wonderful to have them along.”